MOOSE JAW, Sask. – Some Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association members are still wary of how a new provincial cattle organization will do business.
A year after the membership voted to support forming the Saskatchewan Cattlemen’s Association, questions and hard feelings remain.
Talk about moving the SSGA, SCA and Saskatchewan Cattle Feeders Association into a common office and combining their publications has led to concern about the future role of the 96-year-old SSGA.
The SCA was proposed as a lobby group for cow-calf producers and feeders. Approved as a development commission under the province’s Agri-Food Act, it will gain control of beef checkoff money now administered by a committee under a different law.
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Elections for the first official SCA board are scheduled for late October. Producers at least 18 years old who have paid checkoffs and haven’t received a refund in the last two years will be eligible to vote.
The board will come into place in January 2010.
Interim SCA president Jack Hextall and consultant Janice Bruynooghe addressed questions and concerns at the SSGA meeting earlier this month.
Former SSGA president Brian Weedon noted that the SCA has already “moved out in front” in terms of creating policy and speaking to media. He asked for precise demographics from the election results.
First vice-president Mark Elford asked why the process for a checkoff refund was left out of the regulations governing the SCA.
Bruynooghe said the regulations are transitory and the SCA does not yet have the power to deal with the levy. But producers will still be able to request a refund once the final regulations are in place.
“The levy system is not going to change,” she said. “How it is collected will change.”
She also said that producers who pay checkoff on 500 head will not be treated differently than those who pay on two.
One of the projects the SSGA has typically funded with checkoff money is its magazine, The Stockgrower.
In his report to the membership, outgoing president Ed Bothner said the magazine would join with the SCFA’s publication. A six-person board from the three organizations would operate it.
However, the motion to take that action was made at a board meeting where quorum had not been obtained.
A resolution from the convention floor suggested that the fall issue of The Stockgrower be used as a trial run for a new publication. Former president Marilyn Jahnke said the costs and benefits should be determined before a wholesale change is made.
Finance chair Randy Clark said the magazine had recently begun making money after a period of losses.
“I have a tough time turning over a profit when the new organization hasn’t guaranteed funding through checkoff,” he told the meeting.
But another former president, Brian Ross, said amalgamating the publications makes sense because fewer cattle mean less revenue from checkoffs and that could save everyone money.
The resolution passed.
